Protecting Obama from Benghazi incompetence

When it comes to metaphors for the Obama administration, it is hard to top the rise and fall of Susan Rice. Her ascension to the inner circle was born of her loyalty to candidate Obama, and she failed to become secretary of state because she was loyal to President Obama instead of the truth.

Her demise offers a clinic about the dangers of ambitious amateurs playing politics, but that amounts to a hill of beans to the White House. The sacrifice of Rice is just another bump in the road to shielding Obama from accountability for the Benghazi debacle.

He treated her withdrawal as a Joan of Arc moment and, from his perspective, it was. Her loss is his gain. He wanted her to have the job, but not at his expense, so she fell on his sword.

Even better, he could blame Republicans. It’s another convenient lie, with even liberal human-rights groups accusing Rice of coddling African warlords and genocidal maniacs. False, too, was the bid to paint her critics as racists and sexists. The shock is that so many yahoos still swallow such boob bait.

In truth, Rice’s confirmation hearing would have been the opening act of a public probe into what the White House knew about the terror attack in Libya on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Having ducked the question during the campaign, the president’s Praetorian Guard isn’t eager to come clean now, either.

Long-delayed congressional testimony by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was up in the air even before she fell and suffered a concussion. Having run out the election clock, this could mean the clock will run out on public interest.

They might get away with it because there is a media double standard on everything about Barack Obama. High unemployment and rising debt, even though they happen on his watch, aren’t his fault.

Ambassador Chris Stevens is assassinated by terrorists, the first envoy killed in 33 years, and the president isn’t to blame, even though his team denied Stevens’ request for better security. With this president, the buck always stops on somebody else’s desk.

...

Obama seems to attract people willing to shield him from the consequences of his own failings. That will eventually catch up with him when he runs out of martyrs.

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